Guess we’re all just a bunch of hicks
Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, the legendary Democratic political consultant who lives on Bent Mountain, brought a columnist and photographer from Denver’s Rocky Mountain News to Floyd recently to write about our "culture" and how it might play out in the upcoming Presidential election.
What we got was stereotyped trash that failed to capture Floyd’s culture, our heritage or the Friday Night Jamboree.
An example of columnist Mike Littwin’s brand of "journalism":
We’re taking "The Crooked Road" music trail – an aptly named back road that, I’m told, will lead us directly to music heaven, which is apparently located on a stage in the back of the Floyd Country Store. Every Friday night, when they hold their gospel and bluegrass and old-timey-music jamboree, this town of 432 turns into a festival of banjo-pickin’ and flat-footin’ – a mini-bluegrass Woodstock, except with no nudity in evidence but, as compensation, some mighty nice-looking store-bought coveralls.
The pickers and the flat-footers and the whoopers and the hollerers spill out from the store and onto the streets and over to the ice cream store (it’s a dry county) and onto the benches and wherever else they can grab a seat or, even better, grab a partner – no age requirement, but it seems to help if you’re on the, uh, north side of 60.
The pickers who drive out of the mountains to jam here in the streets set the beat, and while I’m not sure exactly where they invented toe-tapping and knee-slapping, it couldn’t have been far from here.
If that’s not culture, well, gah-dayem, what is?
Frankly, I expected more from Mudcat, the man who built much of his political consultant reputation on Mark Warner’s ride to the governor’s mansion. Apparently he and Littwin worked together at a newspaper once and that’s why he brought the Denver reporter here.
Memo to Mike Littwin: The "ice cream store" is in the Floyd County Store, not across the street. Floyd County is far from "dry." We have nationally-acclaimed wineries here. They serve beer and wine at most restaurants and you can even get a mixed drink down at Ray’s on U.S. 221. The Crooked Road runs for a spell along U.S. 221, a well-maintained federal highway that is not much of a "back road." On any Friday night, you can find as many kids and teenagers in the Jamboree as older folks.
Sorry you missed all that Mike. But since you’re into stereotypes, let me ask this: Were you, perhaps, on a Rocky Mountain high when you came to Floyd?
Don’t ruin the ambiance. It’s more fun to think of David Morrisette running his still up in the holler than a winery. You never know when the Darlin’s will hit a gusher of Texas Tea while shooting food and ruin the place.
I read the entire piece in the Denver Post Sunday edition and, honestly, I didn’t get the impression he was calling Floyd folk “hicks”. I just thought “Cool, they’re talking about Doug’s hometown”.
The closer to the story one sits, the further from the truth sits the press. (Or a corollary there-of)
But seriously was Littwin even here, the old ice cream parlour at Lazardo’s has been closed for at least a year…
BTW: I wouldn’t paint Warner and his hired guns with the same brush. After seeing Warner and Zeman sitting together at the FF I’d observe that old school Republicans and new Democrats are finding some common ground.
They opened an ice cream store in Floyd and nobody announced it? That would really be the pits! Sheesh, what ever happened to accuracy in reporting? What did he do, drive past the country store and look in the windows and write his whole article on that basis? Maybe you’re right, Doug…Littwin musta just “buzzed” through town…
Mike Littwin, you need to get your head out of the clouds and any other place you seem to have it. First off our people at the Floyd Store wear OVERALLS, our mechanics wear coveralls.
Apparently you sampled some of the spirits in another county that is not dry before you got to Floyd. We can get the same thing here you can get in Denver we just don’t get as HIGH. In case you’re missing my point we’re NOT a dry county.
All the pickers don’t drive out of the mountains to get to the jamboree. Would you believe some come out of the flatlands? Hell, we have even had them come from Colorado as well as numerous foreign countries.
If you plan to keep writing for a newspaper you are going to have to pay more attention to details. Like your beloved vice president said “I can say this because I’m not running for re-election”.
In conclusion, I don’t think you would know culture if it came up and bit you on your gah-dayem arse. Now you have a nice day.
*Sitting here for awhile now trying to think of a good example of Denver’s music culture*
I never would have used the Jamboree and Woodstock in the same sentence either.